Eponymous location

As eponymous locality ( english Type site ) is called in the archeology of the place of a era , archaeological culture was name-giving, group, or style, so a eponym is. This place does not have to be typical of the respective culture or be at the center of its distribution, but was usually the first place where the specific artifacts were found. This principle was justified by the French archaeologist Gabriel de Mortillet in a publication from 1869 in which he named archaeological cultures of the Paleolithic after eponymous sites in France. In addition to sites, eponymous rivers ( Criș culture , Indus culture , Körös culture , Tisza culture ), mountains ( Wartberg culture ), lakes ( Mondsee culture ), regions ( Cycladic culture ) or landscapes ( Lusatian culture , Wessex culture ) chosen for naming.

The importance of the type locality in geology is comparable to the importance of the eponymous site in archeology .

Cultures and groups according to eponymous localities

The following archaeological cultures were named after eponymous sites (the derivation of the sites is explained in the linked articles):

Old Stone Age

• Acheuléen , Ahrensburg culture , Aurignacia , Azilien , Badegoulien , Bromme culture , Clactonia , Folsom culture , Gravettia , Hamburg culture , Magdalénien , Moustérien , Micoquien , Oldowan , Pavlovien , Szeletien

Epipalaeolithic and Mesolithic

• Botai culture , Ertebølle culture , Natufien , Kongemose culture , Kunda culture , Maglemose culture ,

Neolithic

• Baalberg culture , Baden culture (also Ossarner or Péceler culture), Bernburg culture , Bischheim culture , Chamer culture , Gatersleben culture , Großgartach culture , Horgen culture , Jordansmühl culture , Lapita culture , Lengyel culture , Majiabang culture , Michelsberg culture , Mondsee culture , Obed culture , Pișcolt culture , Pfyner culture , Remedello culture , Rössen culture , Salzmünder culture , Samarra culture , Schönfeld culture , Schussenried culture , Vinča culture , Vučedol culture , Walternienburger culture , Wartberg culture , Yangshao culture
• Aichbühler Group , Altheimer Group , Goldberg III Group , Oberlauterbacher Group , Pollinger Group ,

Bronze age

• Adlerberg culture , Aunjetitz culture , Lausitz culture, Maikop culture , Laugen-Melaun culture , Mycenaean culture , Wessex culture
• Singener Gruppe , Straubinger Gruppe

Women's grave from Wölfersheim in the Wetterau Museum Friedberg, eponymous for the Bronze Age stage Wölfersheim

In the Bronze Age , the chronological system of Hermann Müller-Karpes also names time levels after important sites, such as

• Level Wölfersheim (Wetterau)
• Level Bessunger Forest near Darmstadt

Iron age

• Hallstatt time / culture : Era and culture after Hallstatt in the Salzkammergut
• Latène time / culture : era and culture after La Tène on Lake Neuchâtel
• Jastorf culture with the stages Jastorf , Ripdorf and Seedorf, also named after places
• Ananino culture , Este culture , Golasecca culture

Other non-European cultures

• Lapita culture to Lapita in New Caledonia

Eponymous archaeological types

For certain types of tools, jewelry and weapons, names derived from eponymous sites are used.

Examples:

• Clovis tip
• Folsom tip
• Byblos - top
• Hajdusamson sword
• Eward Park sword
• Mörigen sword
• Binninger needle
• Certosa - Primer

Eponyms in paleoanthropology

The human line of ancestry is sometimes identified by eponymous sites, such as Homo heidelbergensis (Heidelberg man), Homo floresiensis (Flores man) and Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthal man).

Alternative concept

The principle that opposes the eponymous site is the naming of archaeological cultures according to key forms , which was borrowed from the key fossils of paleontology and first introduced in 1861 by the French paleontologist Édouard Armand Lartet . In this tradition, also ceramic key forms (later were Beaker culture , Globular Amphora , Beaker Culture , Bocca Quadrata ), formative decorating styles ( Cardium Pottery , Pottery , Corded Ware ) or burial customs ( single grave culture , tumuli culture , Urnfield culture , yamna culture , ocher grave culture , Kurgankultur ) for the Designation of archaeological cultures used.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gabriel de Mortillet: Essai d'une classification des cavernes et des stations sous abri fondée sur les produits de l'industrie humaine . In: Materiaux pour l'histoire de l'Homme 5, Paris 1869, pp. 172-179.
2. ↑ Édouard Lartet: Nouvelles recherches sur la coexistence de l'homme et des grands mammifères fossiles réputés caractéristiques de la dernière période géologique. In: Annuaire Sciences Naturelles, quatrième série 15. Paris, 1861, pp. 177-253.